Bruce Reed to head Biden staff

Bruce Reed, the executive director of President Barack Obama’s deficit commission and well-known Clinton administration policy guru, will become chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden, succeeding Ron Klain, an administration official said Friday.

Klain told colleagues in an e-mail Friday morning: “The VP has known Bruce since the late 1980s and worked very closely with him when Congress passed the Biden Crime Bill in 1994. Bruce Reed to head Biden staff. …

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“Bruce played a critical role in getting Bill Clinton elected president in 1992; he then spent eight years at the White House, ultimately serving as President Clinton’s Chief Domestic Policy Adviser, where he was crucial to that administration’s many achievements.”

Klain will leave the vice president’s office Friday, Jan. 21, to become the president of Case Holdings, according to recent reports. Reed will be on the job Monday, Jan. 24, the day before the State of the Union address.

More from Klain’s e-mail:

“I’m very pleased to invite you to a staff meeting at 1pm today, with the vice president and Dr. [Jill} Biden, to introduce you to our new chief of staff, Bruce Reed. A formal release from the vice president announcing Bruce’s appointment will go out later this morning.

“If you don’t know Bruce, he has long been one of the thought leaders of the Democratic Party. … For the past year, he has been the executive director of President Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission.

Bruce’s full accomplishments are far too long to list — he has been CEO of the DLC, a staffer to Sen. Al Gore and co-author of a book with Rahm Emanuel — and Bruce’s fans are drawn from all segments of our party, starting with Presidents Obama and Clinton, and including folks like John Podesta and Andy Stern, who are excited about Bruce joining our team. …

“[The vice president] respects Bruce’s intellect, his loyalty, and his creativity. Like all of us, Bruce will faithfully pursue the Obama-Biden agenda — and that effort will benefit from the addition of Bruce’s considerable talents.

“For me, what I feel best about is that I am leaving people that I care so much about — all of you — in the hands of someone I have known for 24 years — someone who is a great person, a great mentor and friend, and a kind soul.”